The Department of Telecommunication (DoT) has screened over 11.4 million active mobile phone connections, out of which six million were found to be fraudulent. While it has already disconnected five million connections, there has been some progress in the ongoing efforts to block the remaining connections, as the government pushes to check cybercrimes and catch criminals.
The DoT also wrote to the chief secretaries and police chiefs of all states and union territories, highlighting the slow pace of registration of FIRs over stolen or lost mobile phones and the recovery of devices.
According to the data available on Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR), the department has been able to block 725,000 mobiles while 295,000 devices have been traced. States like Karnataka, Maharashtra and Telangana seem to be doing exceptional work in recovering lost or stolen phones.
Meanwhile, the minister of state for communications, Devusinh Chauhan informed the parliament that more than 300 FIRs had been registered to name over 1,700 points of sale (PoS) over fraudulent connections. Additionally, over 50,000 PoS have been blacklisted. By using the artificial intelligence and axial recognition-powered solution, ASTR and other algorithms, over six million fraudulent connections were detected.
